The Ireland-based predictions market Predictious, launched back in July and responsible for handling $300,000 in BTC so far, is presenting another feature: new contracts on Bitcoin derivatives.

Besides the contracts in different categories – sports, politics or entertainment, among others -and binary options on the price of Bitcoin, which were already available at Predictious before, now the platform is completing its service with a new kind of derivative contract with option spreads on the price of the world’s most famous cryptocurrency.

“In the past couple of weeks, Bitcoin has been extremely volatile, and it’s important for traders to be able to reduce risk, and hedge their Bitcoin position. They can now do so in an easy and cost efficient way by using option spreads”, says Flavien Charlon, the founder of Pixode, the company that manages Predictious.

While offering limited risks, option spreads are still very versatile, which means a “bullish investor can use a vertical spread to benefit from Bitcoin gains, while limiting risks if the price crashes. (…) On the other hand, bearish investors can use them to short Bitcoin”, explains a press release.

Traders are obviously very interested in Bitcoin derivatives, but the number of businesses accepting payments in Bitcoin has surged in the past few months. Those businesses have expenses in US Dollar, or Euro, and need to hedge their Bitcoin position. The type of derivatives we are offering will be very useful to them as well.

“Predictious is currently one of the most reliable way to do so. Since losses are limited with option spreads, investors are not exposed to counterparty risks, like they would be when trading futures on competing services”, Charlon adds. Besides traders, the Bitcoin miners out there can also use spreads on the Bitcoin difficulty to reduce risks associated with investing in mining hardware.

According to the platform founder, the predictions market is also “welcoming liquidity providers” and “offering a rebate on fees to any signed up market maker”. Moreover, a trading API is available for algorithmic trading.

Besides cryptocurrency, Predictious offers option spreads for other types of assets like precious metals and currency pairs, all settled in Bitcoin.

Maria is an experienced journalist currently living in the UK. She has been writing about Bitcoin and the altcoin universe since 2013. She is also a member of the Lifeboat Foundation's New Money Systems Board and a big cryptocurrency supporter.